Looking for another way to make your company more attractive to a potential buyer? Give it some more heft. This extra "weight" added to your business will be a welcome addition and put your business in rare company.

One of the critical success factors that propels profits at companies like McDonalds and Starbucks is process. Refined processes. Repeatable processes. Documented processes. Processes that can be readily learned by new employees.

Repeatable processes produce repeatable (and more predictable) results, which yields more predictable profit streams. What are some of those processes that should be documented? Just about everything in your business from how your company performs lead generation to estimating and quoting to operations and fulfillment to customer care and follow-up and collecting receivables. We call these the "lead-to-cash" processes of a business.

Yes, it's a pain. And yes, it takes time. But it doesn't have to be phonebook-thick to be valuable. Start with a simple outline of the "lead-to-cash" overview of steps you go through to attract, sell, fulfill, collect and retain business. Then fill in the details of each step. Perhaps you want to outsource this to someone who can come in and interview you and key employees to find out how things get done and produce the documentation for you. (Be sure to get an electronic version that you can edit and keep updated as you refine your processes.)

Buyers who are investigating companies to acquire are trying to assess the risk associated with the business, in particular, their future operation of the company. If key business processes and job descriptions are well documented, the buyer sees less risk involved. Whether the buyer intends to be the owner/operator, or it's a private equity group that will rely on a general manager for day-to-day operations, your company's written (and updated) standard operating procedures will be quite helpful.

It will help instill confidence that you have thoughtfully established business practices that aren't just "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" and is a mark of a mature company. This further gives confidence to a potential buyer that they can successfully reproduce your results by following your steps. And that's exactly what the McDonald's system of repeatable processes is all about.

If you'd like to learn more about the significance of creating systems for your business and documenting them, I highly recommend that you read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It's a worthwhile book for business owners who are looking to get more out of their business.